Almost three times as many people watch music videos online as legally download music

"The most popular form of music consumption polled by Nielsen was the “watch” habit: 57% have watched music videos on computers in the last three months. Sites like YouTube are a mainstream channel. Just behind “watch” in global popularity comes the traditional area of concern of the music industry - consumers downloading a song from the internet without paying for it. Many of the online consumers who have been surveyed declare having undertaken this activity: nearly 50% of the global online population in the last three months, although this number varies greatly from region to region: being highest in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East / Africa, and far less in Europe and the US.
However, it is key to keep in mind that these figures do not reflect the volume of downloads nor that this activity is necessarily illegal, as free legal digital downloads can be obtained.
Other learnings from our survey show the growing importance of IT and telecom devices, whether used for music streaming on a computer (26%), streaming music on a mobile phone (21%), watching music video on mobile phones (23%) and downloading or using music apps (20%)."
Source:  Digital music consumption and digital music access, Nielsen Music, for Midem, 12th January 2011

Methodology:  "This analysis is based on a survey conducted by Nielsen (survey of 26,644 online consumers in 53 markets across the globe during September 2010). The broad set of questions covered  music purchasing and listening habits."